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Episode 109: The blue room
Published 8th November, 2024
Julian O’Shea, Bill Sunderland and Dani Siller face questions about astronautical activities, appliance actions and Allen's abilities.
HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Jovi Thorne, Dave Matthews, Jeff. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
Transcript
Transcription by Caption+
Tom:
What flying animal is missing from this book title: "P is for [blank], the Worst Alphabet Book Ever"?
The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.
Hello, welcome to Lateral, and a little bit of behind-the-scenes info for you today. We are recording this show at an earlier time than usual, so forgive us if we take a little bit of time to warm up. We tried solving a test question just before we started recording, and it turned out it was just the instructions for the coffee machine.
So we didn't solve anything, but I do now understand how to make a macchiato. So there's that.
Here to see what's brewing, we have an all-Australian special today. We start with YouTuber talking about city design and Melbourne, Julian O'Shea. Welcome back to the show.
Julian:
Saying g'day feels like the right thing to do today.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
Yeah, we can do it. Every time you say g'day, those Brits, they're like, "What's going on? What's he saying? What are the words coming out of this guy's mouth?" But we can do it today.
Tom:
We can tell who the rest of the panel is already. But Julian, how are you doing?
SFX:
(guests laughing)
Julian:
I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Fantastic to be back.
I've, yeah. You say it's an early start. No, it's not, my friend. It is evening time. According to three quarters of the panel.
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
What are you up to at the moment? What's going on in your world?
Julian:
Making videos. Making videos for the national broadcaster, which feels like a promotion.
Tom:
Ooh.
Julian:
Yes. So you can see my stuff on the ABC, the little Australian cousin of the BBC.
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Tom:
I do like how Australia and the UK refer to it like, the ABC, the BBC.
Julian:
That's right, yeah.
Tom:
America is just NBC, CBS. They don't get the article.
Julian:
That's right, and that's the— That pause just kinda matters, you know? The elevation, the status, the.
Tom:
Well, thank you for slumming it with us down in the podcast world today.
Julian:
No worries at all.
Tom:
You are joined by folks from our very first show, returning guests time and time again. We will start today—
Bill, you spoke up earlier. So I'm deliberately going to go to Dani Siller first, from Escape This Podcast. Dani, how are you doing?
Dani:
I'm doing great.
I do feel like this is much earlier than we normally get to record. I like that because there are three of us, we got to choose this one. We overruled you.
Tom:
Yeah, you did.
Dani:
I appreciate it.
Tom:
How is the podcast going?
Dani:
It's going very smoothly.
We've been finishing off a lovely run of some guest-run rooms, so I actually got to play. I didn't have to do all of the design work for this half of the year, which is always a treasure.
Tom:
And our third guest today: the other half – the other regular half, at least –
Dani:
Oh, that one.
Tom:
of Escape This Podcast. Bill Sunderland, what sort of rooms have you been working on in the podcast lately?
Bill:
Well, the thing that's coming up. So we've done this set of fun rooms from guests, which we do fairly regularly. We have people say, "I've written a room, and I want you to play it."
Tom:
These are escape rooms, to be clear. These are audio escape rooms.
Bill:
Escape rooms. Sorry, everybody. They're audio escape rooms.
Tom:
I should've put that in the intro. That was on me.
Bill:
You know what? It doesn't— People can figure it out through context, like a lateral thinking puzzle.
But yeah, we usually have guests on to play through the rooms we design. And lately for the last five episodes, we've had guests running rooms for us, which we've done regularly. Escape rooms where we solve all the puzzles and escape. And then I think following that, which by the time this comes out, will be already underway.
Dani:
Just started.
Bill:
A series of connected escape rooms, all set on a cruise ship, with various players coming on and taking their turn at a short story on a cruise ship with puzzles and enjoyment like that.
Tom:
You are doing... (chuckles) This is a really, really tentative link, but you are doing the escape room podcast equivalent of The Love Boat.
Bill:
Yeah, exactly!
Dani:
Ideally, that's the goal.
Bill:
It is, because it's quite episodic as well. It will be. It'll be the Puzzle Boat.
Tom:
And you can bring in a different guest star each episode who's just there for that one bit of the cruise.
Dani:
Yeah, but then everyone knows that that's the murderer. Sorry, I think I watched a really unique episode of Love Boat.
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Tom:
Well, good luck to all three of you.
With coffee at the ready, let's see which questions will grind you down, and which you'll get in an instant. We're going to start with question one.
Why didn't any Apollo astronauts 'high five' when they were on the moon?
I'll say that again.
Why didn't any Apollo astronauts 'high five' when they were on the moon?
Bill:
Okay.
Dani:
Short and sweet.
Bill:
First pitch. High fives weren't invented until 1987.
Julian:
Ah, you think it was all...
Bill:
First high five happened in 1987.
Dani:
This is not something that I have ever researched before. Julian, do you know anything about the history of high fives?
Julian:
I'll be honest, not my specialist area.
But you know, what is interesting is that everything does have to be invented. And it's so weird to think about things... There must've been, of course, a moment that didn't exist.
One I was looking at recently was the introduction of the first roundabout. And you're like, of course there was a moment in time when roundabouts didn't exist.
Dani:
But just think about the maverick who had to pitch it.
Julian:
That's right. You could be onto something there, genuinely. I wonder if it was an era of handshakes, of gentlemanly fist bumps, of maybe gentle hugs amongst colleagues.
Bill:
That classic Roman arm clasp where you grab each other's forearms and say "Salve".
Dani:
I find it so hard to believe that people weren't just high fiving each other for fun. I can only assume the one other logical reason would be that, much like The Simpsons, people didn't have the fifth finger yet. So it couldn't be a high five.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
Yeah, exactly.
Julian:
Ah, they're doing the old mitten two instead.
Bill:
Mitten two! They did heaps of them on the moon.
Tom:
Bill, we were expecting all sorts of diversions here about static electricity and moon dust and spacesuits. And the thing is, you are exactly right.
Dani:
Oh, come on!
Bill:
Yes, he is!
Dani:
I was absolutely on moon poison.
Julian:
Yes, we are making the shortest podcast ever, and we— I'm down for it.
Bill:
Think about it. At Woodstock, right? They're holding up two fingers like a peace sign. And then they needed more time. They kept adding more and more as time went by.
Dani:
Would they have only done two if they'd known that there were more options available to them? Ahh.
Tom:
The last astronauts to walk on the moon – Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmidt – in Apollo 17 in December 1972. The high five did not become popular until the late 1970s.
And obviously, it is shrouded in the mists of time. We're never going to know the true origin story.
Does anyone want to take a guess at where it might have been popularised? What the big moment might have been?
Dani:
Okay, late '70s.
Julian:
Surfing culture?
Dani:
Star Wars and Elvis died.
Bill:
I wanted to go basketball. I could picture being like, you shoot, you leave your hand up like this. And then someone's like, "Nice one, baby!" And they smack it out of the air.
Tom:
It was sport. It was baseball.
It was Glenn Burke of the Los Angeles Dodgers high fiving Dusty Baker after a home run in 1977.
Now, that's probably not the first high five in history. They will likely have picked it up from somewhere. But that was the most likely high five seen around the world that meant that we now have that as a gesture.
Bill:
That's the patient zero of high fives.
Julian:
What a contribution to culture. Do you know what that also means? Someone had to invent 'down low too slow'.
Tom:
(laughs uproariously)
Bill:
(gasps) You're right.
Julian:
You know, we know when high five happens. So we know between then and now, that's the window.
Bill:
I'm sorry, there's still more! The classic thing when someone is gonna go high fiving you, and you 'down low too slow' is to do the Elvis hair thing, which meant for a while, there was the Elvis hair thing, but not its usage as an anti high five defence.
Tom:
(laughs)
Julian:
So anyone listening, there is a PhD topic up for grabs called "The Invention of All P-Parts of the High Five."
Tom:
Yep.
Well, having blasted through that one very quickly, we'll go on to the first guest question.
And Bill, we'll start with you.
Bill:
Yeah, lovely.
This question was sent in by Jovi Thorne. So if you have any problems, tell them about it, not me.
SFX:
(Tom and Dani cackle)
Bill:
Here we are.
During the American Civil War, children would be required to write a number on a piece of paper, fold it up, and put it in their shoe. And this allowed them to swear. What was the number, and why was this done?
And one more time for you.
During the American Civil War, children would be required to write a number on a piece of paper, fold it up, and put it in their shoe. This allowed them to swear. What was the number, and why was this done?
Dani:
Not where I thought that sentence was going.
Tom:
No, that was a constant set of unexpected words there.
Julian:
Now it is worth remembering that the high five was not invented at this stage. Do need to remember that.
Bill:
It is off the table!
Tom:
(laughs)
Julian:
That's right. Nothing to do with high fives.
Bill:
That cannot be the answer!
Julian:
The number might be five, but that's not why.
Dani:
I immediately went to those online things, I love reading those on the internet that... I don't know if they're real, urban legends, or whatever, of children in the US writing letters to soldiers overseas, and a soldier opening up a letter from a child.
And one of the ones that went around the internet was just, "Hello, I hope you don't die."
Bill:
(giggles)
Tom:
(deflates)
Bill:
Ah, kids, they write the darndest thing to soldiers.
Julian:
Now, I am not on the right path, obviously, because my brain's like, you write the number down, so if the kid gets lost, you can just phone the parent. You can just pick up the telephone. You know, that thing that exists at the time. Just pick it up. So I'm gonna, yeah, hand ball to someone else to chime in some thoughts.
Dani:
My next nomination is that we come up with some Civil War era swears.
Tom:
I remember reading something about how swearing changes over time, and it was about Deadwood, the TV series. So Deadwood is famously filled with modern profanity. They talk like they're in the Old West, but there's a lot of F-bombs in there. There's a lot of really modern swearing.
And they were trying to make it as authentic as possible. And originally they were using Old West swear words, which were things like 'tarnation', which would have been offensive back then, would have been horrible.
And it just sounded so corny that they decided to update the swearing to make it feel authentic to the audience. To make it feel blasphemous and profane in a way that hearings, in a way that makes them not sound like Yosemite Sam from Looney Tunes.
Julian:
Cor blimey.
Tom:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that would have been "God blind me" way back when. That's where that comes from. It's a minced oath.
Julian:
On that, God, I did think one day if it did have something to do with some kind of religious link, some kind of, you know, when you say you're allowed to swear. Some kind of—
Dani:
Other meanings of swear.
Julian:
Pre-approval of, you know, you've done your confession. Here's your receipt. You've earned a couple of naughties.
Tom:
Or to promise— Sorry.
SFX:
(Bill and Tom laugh)
Bill:
Oh, you— I said do twelve Hail Marys, but you did fourteen. Alright, you got two swears.
Julian:
That's right.
Tom:
Someone, somewhere, is just getting ready to hammer just a treatise to your door with a nail there, Julian. I'm not entirely sure that's how that works.
Julian:
Okay, okay.
Dani:
Do we think that the war part had anything to do with this, or is it just a coincidence that that's the era?
Tom:
Well, I was thinking it might be swearing allegiance to someone, rather than swearing with profanity. That it might be part of some ritual or some rule that... not conscripted them but meant they were definitely on one side or the other?
Bill:
Look, I will say, the war is important.
Tom:
(snickers) Okay.
Bill:
If there wasn't— If there was no war, this would not be relevant.
Dani:
Be no shoe numbers.
Bill:
Yeah, exactly.
Dani:
Okay.
Bill:
No numbers in shoes if there was no war. And I will say as well, you're right to be thinking about different forms of the word 'swear'.
Tom:
What other forms are there?
Bill:
You were very close. Like swearing allegiance, not quite, but that sort of vein of...
Julian:
Swear an oath, swear a, yeah. I think you are onto something.
Is it, you've done a— You've done some kind of assessment or check, you've signed up for some cause, and you're swearing a commitment to one side of the Civil War perhaps?
Tom:
I mean, the—
Dani:
For children?
Julian:
And the number's almost like your barcode check to say, you know, you're pre-approved?
Tom:
Long shot, Bill. How about it's the number of siblings you have?
Bill:
I will say... And this is inadvertently saying no to the number of siblings.
Tom:
Okay.
Bill:
For the— For everybody who did this, for all the children who did this... it was the same number.
Tom:
Oh?
Julian:
That absolutely threw out my last thought.
Bill:
Mmm.
Julian:
The same number.
Tom:
If we knew the number, would it be obvious?
Bill:
If you knew the number, it might be... You'd be pretty much on your way there.
Dani:
Interesting.
Julian:
Got the same number... Because these are kids. It's not the number where they... something triggered, like the age they'd be allowed to do something, or this is the time they'd be allowed?
Bill:
Julian, you are getting closer with the last thing that you said. You're getting close to the idea.
Julian:
Okay, no, it was the idea that, maybe it's a time or a trigger at some kind of point?
Bill:
Hmm.
Julian:
Like when they become an adult, when they become...
Tom:
But it's all the same number, right?
Bill:
Well, when do people become an adult?
Tom:
Their age?
Dani:
Yeah, something about age of majority, the birthday that they hit that age of majority, things like that, but...
Tom:
Oh! Wait, were some of these kids lying about their age?
The same way that folks in the First World War would sign up and claimed they were 18 so they could go to war because they would want to be patriotic?
Bill:
Oh, but Tom, they're not gonna outright lie. They're swearing an oath.
So how do they get away with it? They're not gonna lie, Tom. They would never technically lie. That'd be unchristian of them.
Julian:
They would be... They'd be saying something like... "I'm 18, down to my feet." (laughs) And then the number 18 is written on the feet.
Bill:
You're so close. If you can figure out this pun... There is a— There is an 18 on a piece of paper in their shoe. So what do they claim?
Dani:
On my sole, I'm 18.
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh uproariously)
Bill:
That's pretty good! But it's not quite right.
Julian:
That's good. That's really good.
Tom:
Oh! Well done!
Bill:
That is pret— That is good. That is good. It's not quite right. I'm not going to let— I'm not going to— Class is— Look, the bell doesn't dismiss you. I do.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
And class is not dismissed until you can tell me the pun that all these children made.
Julian:
I am above 18.
Bill:
I will give it to you.
Julian:
I'm over 18.
Bill:
I'm over 18.
Dani:
Ohh!
Tom:
(groans)
Bill:
So, the story here is...
Children wanted to join the war. It was the Civil War. What else were you going to do other than join the war?
But of course, if you're under 18, they wouldn't let you enlist. And you had to swear truthfully.
And so for people who didn't want to lie, didn't want to incriminate themselves... they would put a piece of paper in their shoe that said '18', and when asked, "How old are you?" they would completely coincidentally say, "I'm over 18."
Fun, fun fact. Some of the war stories are a bit harder to get a full... is this pure apocrypha, or are there any cases? But there is one registered, recounted case where it happened in terms of voting. Where in an election, someone had put the— put '21' in their shoes in 1833. H.N. Horan had put the number '21' in his shoes and sworn, "I'm over 21." So he was— So he could cast his vote. And that is a documented case.
Dani:
When you get an image in your head, just say, picture a Civil War soldier. You don't picture a 16-year-old little language troll.
Tom:
Mhm, yep.
Bill:
Yes, so, underage soldiers, most of whom, I will say, served as musicians, as drummers, or medical assistants, just trying to help out, not actually go to war... who still wanted to enlist... would put the number '18' in their shoe so that they could truthfully swear they were 'over 18'.
Tom:
Thank you to Dave Matthews for sending this question in.
Bill:
The Dave Matthews?
Tom:
A Dave Matthews. More than that, I couldn't tell you.
Mark Allen is a professional snooker player. During matches, he sometimes pauses to speak to the referee, who replies with information that could help Mark win. Despite this, his opponent doesn't object. What's happening?
And one more time.
Mark Allen is a professional snooker player. During matches, he sometimes pauses to speak to the referee, who replies with information that could help Mark win. Despite this, his opponent doesn't object. What's happening?
Julian:
I'll be honest. I've been this person in so many sports and activities, where I'll be playing a game and be like, "Look, can I do this?"
And due to my sheer lack of ability versus whoever I'm playing, they're like, "I'll allow this one. Good luck."
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Julian:
"Am I allowed to do this?" "That's fine."
Dani:
How much is that allowed? Just in a tennis match? Can Nadal just go up to the chair umpire and say, "Am I allowed to step over this line when I serve? Sorry, just..."
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Julian:
"Wait, what happens after 40? Is that right, 30, 40? What's next?"
Bill:
Nadal has had this long career, but he's like, "Look, I never actually asked anyone about what's the boundary. And at this point, it's too late to ask. It would be embarrassing."
Tom:
But you joke about that. But when I was a kid, no one taught boys the rules of soccer. It was just assumed that we knew them.
Bill:
You just gotta know them.
Tom:
And I didn't think this was weird at the time, but when I was six, seven years old, however, going in for the first time in PE in school, to do soccer, I didn't... You kick the ball towards there, I guess? I didn't know what a corner was. I didn't know what any of the rules were. You just had to pick this up by osmosis because it was assumed you knew it.
Dani:
Yeah, you know what? I remember a similar experience as a sports kid, specifically with soccer. I didn't play much soccer. I just went in and kicked a ball around, and then at some point, someone yells, "Offside!"
No idea. No one ever explained offside. I still, as far as I understand...
Bill:
Nobody can.
Dani:
A lot of adults don't know what offside means.
Tom:
(laughs)
Julian:
Dani's put on. Australia only really discovered soccer in the last year or so when the Matildas crushed it in the Women's World Cup.
Tom:
Yep.
Julian:
I think it was a whole country just together going... "So football, how does this work again? Okay, yeah, I see what's going on. I see this, good sport."
Tom:
Yeah.
Dani:
I have one idea. The very few things I know about snooker is it's got a whole load of different coloured balls. How colourblind is this man?
SFX:
(others gasping)
Julian:
Ohh mate.
Bill:
Oh, that's such a good pick! He's just like, "Is that a pink one? Is that a blue one? Is that a green one?" That is from— That is such a good pick. I will accept no other answers.
Julian:
(laughs)
Tom:
Fortunately, you don't have to accept any other answers because you are entirely correct! Out of nowhere!
Bill:
Amazing.
Tom:
Yes, we had all sorts of diversions here about the score, about anything like that. No, Mark Allen has red-green colourblindness. So he struggles to tell the difference between the 15 red balls and the brown.
Bill:
Of course.
Julian:
Dani, I... As this question got asked, I'm like, I wonder if he needs assistive support. I'm like, maybe he's blind. I'm like, no, that doesn't make sense, surely. You know, like playing snooker blind, like, where's the ball?
Dani:
That would've been a fascinating one to pitch and be told you're half right.
Bill:
(laughs)
Tom:
Why doesn't he have to do that all the time? Does anyone here know the rules of snooker enough to figure out why it's only sometimes he has to do that?
Dani:
You start by hitting the red ones, and then you move on to the next colour and things like that? And eventually he'll run out of the ones that he cares about? Or that are difficult to tell?
Tom:
True. The brown is normally on its spot. Each of the colours has a specific spot, but if at some point there was a big mess of a break, and the reds went everywhere or everything got knocked over, you could lose track of which is which. As soon as the brown is potted, most of the time it goes back on its spot, and it's obvious where it is. But sometimes, from context, it can be difficult to work out.
Dani:
Okay, so knowing a little bit about how snooker works would have helped.
Tom:
Well, apparently not. Just absolutely nailed it. Thank you very much. We will move on to the next question.
Dani, with that wonderful solve, we will rattle on to your question, please.
Dani:
Absolutely. I have a good feeling for all of you about this one.
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
No pressure.
The words 'doner', 'gyros', and 'shawarma' are used for three dishes that contain meat and flatbread. What completely different thing do they also have in common?
One more time.
The words 'doner', 'gyros', and 'shawarma' are used for three dishes that contain meat and flatbread. What completely different thing do they also have in common?
Julian:
I don't know if it's helping, but I've eaten my body weight in these foods multiple times.
Tom:
(laughs) Yeah.
Julian:
There's nothing better at 2 am than a rotating slice of chunk of meat and some flatbread.
Dani:
I will say, I looked at this question, and I said aloud, "We've got Australians on this show."
SFX:
(guys laughing)
Tom:
And it is regional. Depending on which part of the world you go to, it will be a different word that was imported for that, based on which group from which country got there first.
Julian:
Which part of Australia, even, matters.
Tom:
Yeah.
Julian:
That's right.
Bill:
All these Melburnians.
Julian:
Yep.
Bill:
I can't— I don't remember, in Melbourne. Souvlaki, gyro?
Tom:
it's time for some doner conversation here. 'Cause I went to Canada and found it's 'donair' there. D-O-N-A-I-R.
Dani:
Ooh.
Bill:
Donair.
Tom:
With a local sauce that is basically... sweetened and evaporated milk based, and it's like you've mixed garlic and evaporated milk, and I'm really not sure about that, but...
Dani:
Interesting.
Tom:
Every region has its own.
Julian:
If you want this to be a controversial podcast, just say, "and this type of food was of course invented..."
Tom:
No, no, no!
SFX:
(Dani and Bill laugh)
Julian:
It doesn't matter how you finish that sentence. Ooh, ooh.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
I can hear the complaints arriving already.
Julian:
Click-click-click!
Bill:
Okay, so there's another thing they have in common other than describing the food that they describe. I have, again, a pitch that I worry is just too correct.
Julian:
Mate, I'm going to get in before you can nail it. Because, enough of your smarts. Here's where my brain's going. She said doner. I'm like, that's a name.
Bill:
Donna!
Julian:
This is a... These are names of things, I reckon, that are more than just a food item. Are they names for a certain thing?
Tom:
I mean, that's kind of the question. That's, unfortunately, that is...
Julian:
No, no, no, but I think it's— I think it's like a Nana. I think it's a grandma. I think it's a family member.
Tom:
Oh?
Bill:
Well, I was going to say, I thought to me, doner is the one that's throwing off my connection to the other two.
Tom:
Okay.
Bill:
Right? Because when I hear a gyro... For people who read it as they read it or say it as they read it, that's a gyro.
Tom:
Yes.
Bill:
Like a gyroscope that's spinning around. And if I was hanging around, coming up with an Arabic language word that sounded like I was spinning something around... Shawarma sounds pretty spinny.
SFX:
(Tom and Julian laugh)
Bill:
It's a shawarma. So, are they all words that are just, 'to spin', or like a wo— Cause, you got spinning meat, you got a wrapped up—
Tom:
There is no way. There is no way that gyro/gyro/ however you pronounce it in your region has the same root as gyroscope.
Bill:
But you wrap it up, and the meat spins, Tom! You wrap it up, and the meat spins!
Tom:
That can't be where that comes from!
Dani:
(cackles)
Bill:
But you wrap it up, and the meat spins! You spin the bread, you spin the meat, you eat the bread.
Julian:
There is a gyrocopter, famously.
Bill:
There's a gyrocopter.
Julian:
A, you know, donercopter, shawarmacopter, they're all things.
Bill:
But doner sounds so unspinning. I can't think of a word that sounds less like I'm spinning than doner. if it was Doner Minogue, that song would never have been written.
Tom:
I mean, that is slightly unfair to Dannii Minogue, but...
Bill:
Hey, she didn't write that song! So that's my thought, that they're all kind of whirlpool-y, spinning... shawarmas and gyros. That's just, I'm just saying. But, I don't know.
Dani:
Well, you know what? We've got some foodies here. We've got some linguists here. And sometimes you just have to go with what a word feels like. 'Cause once again, you're absolutely right.
Tom:
No!
Bill:
(laughs)
Dani:
They all mean spinning and rotating in their various languages.
Tom:
What?!
Bill:
They wrap it up, and the meat spins, Tom!
Tom:
They— The—
Julian:
That's so good.
Tom:
There's no wa— How do we keep stumbling into these this episode? I can hear our producer unlocking the shiny bonus question already. How, how? That was a gag! There's no way those have the same basis! Really?
Dani:
Turns out Greek is easy.
Bill:
Tom, if you walked into a restaurant... If you're a Greek man, and you walked into a restaurant, and you said, "Hey!" And I'm not doing the voice. If you said, "Hey, that meat's spinning."
Tom:
(snickers) Thank you.
Bill:
He goes, "Yeah, that meat is spinning." And you're going to take that spinning meat and you're going to put it on a piece of bread and you're going to serve it flat, right? Nah, nah, nah, mate. I'm going to spin the bread up.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
Okay, and you call this a... I call it a spin. You'd be like, "Yeah, that makes sense." You'd be like, "Yeah, it's a gyro, I get it." If you were going to name that, that's what you'd name it.
Dani:
And I can't help you with the other pronunciations too far, but yeah, Turkish in origin, 'doner', or... Again, I'm not going to try, but in Turkish, 'döner', with some alteration to the pronunciation, I'm sure, means rotating.
Gyros in Greek, yeah, it's the same word. It means turning around.
And, yeah, shawarma also comes from a different Turkish one, meaning rotating.
Tom:
Alright, well, we got that one very quickly. So, let's move on.
On one type of household appliance, you can see a picture of a man wearing a top hat and carrying a ladder. What is the appliance, and what does the symbol indicate?
I'll say that again.
On one type of household appliance, you can see a picture of a man wearing a top hat and carrying a ladder. What is the appliance, and what does the symbol indicate?
Julian:
Surely it's the device to put your Monopoly set into the attic, you know?
SFX:
(Tom and Dani laugh)
Bill:
Yes.
Julian:
Your old Monopoly set lifter, you know? That, it's gotta be.
Bill:
You've played Monopoly once. You don't want to play it for another ten years. So put it up in the attic!
Julian:
You've ruined one Christmas. Let's not ruin another! Grab your Monopoly lifter and chuck it up!
Tom:
Why does that sound like an insult? "Oh, you Monopoly lifter!" It just...
SFX:
(guests laughing)
Dani:
I really thought, Tom, that expression on your face was just gonna be a "Oh, and you got it again too quickly!"
Tom:
(laughs) No, no!
Julian:
I was confident it wouldn't be, I'll be honest.
Bill:
Yeah, I think we could agree on that.
Julian:
Quick aside... Not enough top hats these days. Just not enough.
Dani:
I can't remember the last time I did housework in a top hat.
Julian:
Yeah.
Bill:
Right?
Julian:
It's been at least a month for me. I agree.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
It's the death of culture.
Julian:
What room are we feeling?
Dani:
I mean, it's household appliance. It might not be limited. It might not be limited to one room. But where would you have your top hat and ladder appliance?
Julian:
What do you got, you think Miss Scarlet in the kitchen with the candlestick, perhaps?
Bill:
I think my thought has gotta be... this is a "fun", "inventive" sort of Twittery kinda way to describe like, "Oh, when I saw this image, all I could see was a man with a top hat and a ladder, but it was actually like a person with..." I don't know what was on their head, but if it's an appliance, what if the ladder is like the grill of an oven and where— and it's cleaning instructions for an oven grill?
Dani:
So it's like a big pot, and it just sort of looks like it's on their head, but...
Bill:
Isn't a top hat that they could be wearing that the internet has been like, "That's a guy in a top hat."
Dani:
Now I feel like I have to draw a man on a ladder with a top hat and then turn it upside down and see what happens.
Bill:
(gasps) Upside down!
Julian:
Very much Mr. Squiggle.
Upside down. Upside down.
Bill:
Oh, it's a lattice. it's a lattice that the— that your tomatoes are growing on. And the top hat is the pot. And the stick figure man is the tomato vine.
No, that's not an appliance.
SFX:
(Bill and Tom laugh)
Tom:
Bill, let me tell you! You're absolutely completely wrong. Nothing to do with that.
Dani:
(snickers)
Bill:
Ah! Okay.
Julian:
So the ladder feels like a no to me. If they're holding a ladder, you know, it's like a big diagonal striped nyet.
Bill:
Well, am I wrong? Am I wrong about the lattice? Or am I wrong about the misinterpretation of a symbol?
Tom:
Bill, you are actually wrong in that whole concept. It really is...
Bill:
So it's a top hat and a ladder man?
Tom:
It really is a picture of a man with a top hat holding a ladder. It is iconography. It's not a clear photorealistic drawing, but that is genuinely what it's trying to portray.
Julian:
Okay.
Bill:
Okay.
Julian:
Top hats, special occasions, ladder.
Bill:
Back to Monopoly lifters.
Julian:
That's right. When there's a formal event, lift up this bit. If you've got guests coming over, lift this part of the couch, and the bed will pop out.
Bill:
Yeah, he's carrying the— He's holding the ladder. He carrying the—
Tom:
Yeah. Mhm.
Bill:
He's not on it. It's just a little infographic of top hats and ladders.
Julian:
You said it was an appliance, Tom?
Tom:
Yes.
Julian:
It's not, for example, on a ladder, perhaps?
SFX:
(group snickering)
Tom:
No, this is definitely an appliance.
Bill:
Okay.
Tom:
And pretty much all houses, except very traditional ones, are gonna have one of these.
Bill:
On a microwave? A mic-ro-wah-ve, if you will?
Dani:
That's not one of the— That's not one of the settings I've seen on it.
Tom:
And this is reasonably common, by the way. This is not just one obscure brand, having double checked. Because I looked at this question, and I was like, I need to check this.
No, there are multiple brands of this appliance that have that design somewhere.
Dani:
What sort of— What is something that, yeah, a traditional house would lack? And that makes it sound like it's quite built into it, almost.
Julian:
Do you reckon the top hat is... part of the aesthetic, or that's just become the common symbol of...
Dani:
Is it one of the washing machine settings? This is the setting for your ladders and your top hats?
Bill:
Washing machine! It's a— It's— But it is a ladder, I was going to say it's not a ladder. It's a clothes horse.
Dani:
A ladder in your stockings, yeah.
Bill:
it's the millenny, millenary and stocking setting on your washing machine.
Dani:
Those are delicate, I assume.
Bill:
They're delicate, hats and stockings.
Tom:
The picture is a quaint reference to the past.
Julian:
Ohh.
Bill:
Oh, okay.
Julian:
Hey, you know what you might do back in the day? In the top hat wearing era?
Dani:
Please.
Bill:
What?
Julian:
Chimney sweep. Maybe.
Tom:
(nods)
Dani:
Okay.
Bill:
Ohh!
Julian:
So... This is the heater setting. The cleaning setting for your chimney, the...
Tom:
Yes. Keep going, Julian.
Julian:
You know, the clean chimney button.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Julian:
What button do you press?
Dani:
It can't be on a chimney, because most houses don't... I mean, most houses here don't.
Bill:
That's what the traditional houses have.
Dani:
Yeah.
Julian:
That's right. So if you don't have that, you put a heater instead.
Tom:
Yeah, I'm not giving you that right away. But yes, it is an icon of a chimney sweep. And it is associated with that. So you've nearly got it. I need you to dial in what that might be representing.
Dani:
So it does feel like we should go towards something heating related, right?
Bill:
Maybe, maybe... I always call it a fume hood, but it's not a fume hood.
Julian:
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Bill:
The fume hood over your oven. You know, the fume hood. Whatever it's called.
Julian:
The exhaust. Yeah, the exhaust.
Bill:
Exhaust, yeah. There's that, or oven. Itself, you might clean. It's a cleaning thing. You're cleaning the hot thing that's in your house.
Julian:
It's the symbol for where the smoke goes.
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
Bill and Julian, you've both kind of nearly said it.
Dani:
No.
Tom:
You're in the right area. It's more general than that, rather than one specific thing.
Julian:
Exhaust. Smoke exhaust.
Bill:
Exhaust, exhaust. If we just say it enough, he'll give it to us.
Julian:
I reckon too. I reckon too.
Bill:
Exhaust?
Tom:
To find this picture, which you may not have noticed, you would have to press a special button or certain key combinations or something like that. It's not just going to be on there and obvious, which is why you may never have noticed it.
Bill:
Is it like an oven cleaning setting? You put your oven into exhaust mode?
Tom:
Nngh, something mode, yeah. It is actually called chimney sweep mode.
Bill:
Chimney sweep mode, on your Roomba, and then you put it in the oven.
Tom:
No, you're right.
It's on a boiler.
You were right, there's chimney sweep mode on a boiler.
Julian:
It sounds like he's talking to a lot of Australians who don't have a lot of boilers down under.
Bill:
Can't have a big boiler. Not a big boiler based country.
Dani:
Or at the very least, a lot of people who live in apartments and don't have to engage with that sort of thing because someone else does it for them.
Tom:
Why might you put the boiler into chimney sweep mode? Which is slang.
Julian:
That's self clean? Is it a flush?
Tom:
You know what? That's close enough. It's maintenance mode.
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
It is the setting that allows you to go outside all of the normal parameters.
You might want to run it over the temperature it's normally allowed to go. You might want to just have it only exhaust and not actually heat things. Or whenever you want to do something weird with it, with a professional around, you put it into what is known as chimney sweep mode.
Bill:
But what you forgot about is that in Australia, when it's hot, we just want it to get really cold. And when it's cold, we all freeze in our cold houses. And nobody is warm in the entire country. And we've— And we're so sad, and no one's ever tried to fix this problem.
Dani:
And no one sympathises because they just say, "It's Australia, how cold could it be?"
Bill:
"Oh yeah, it's not that cold," and we're like, "Look, it's 10 degrees, but it's really cold."
Julian:
Do you know what we could do with a boiler, with a chimney sweep mode?
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
Where's our boiler?
Julian:
Where's our top hat and our ladders?
Tom:
Julian, it is over to you for the next question.
Julian:
The Unbelievable Truth is a BBC Radio panel game where four comedians take turns to hide true statements amongst a plethora of lies. Why did one listener re-edit every episode so that the order of the comedians was swapped around?
I'll say it again.
The Unbelievable Truth is a BBC Radio panel game where four comedians take turns to hide true statements amongst a plethora of lies. Why did one listener re-edit every episode so that the order of comedians was swapped around?
Bill:
Hmm.
Dani:
What? One or two episodes of this show.
Julian:
There are some similarities with this, whereas there's a lot of fake information that occasionally some truth falls in.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Julian:
But it's a different game.
Tom:
I mean, there are a lot of British panel shows, including one that I've run in the past, where it's basically... just lying about things and working out which is true. We had Call My Bluff. We have Would I Lie to You?. We've got a lot of these.
Bill:
So why would the order of who's speaking be interesting?
Dani:
Yeah, outside of them just doing it as their own fun little thing, like reordering every episode in the order of most lies to fewest lies, or just, nah, I want to see these people in alphabetical order now. I don't have, I can't think of...
Tom:
That is a gag on Taskmaster. If you ever watch Taskmaster, in pretty much every version of it around the world, the comedians on the panel will be seated in alphabetical order. And that is just a little thing that got put in at some point and became a rule. It's the kind of nerdy detail you'd expect.
Dani:
And now people do in-depth analysis of which seat is most likely to win, and so how likely you are to win based on the first letter of your name.
Tom:
Well, actually, is it something like that? Are you more likely to win that show if you go first, or go second? But even if that's the case, why would you do an edit to reverse that? You said reverse, not randomise, right?
Julian:
It says re-edit. So the comedians were swapped around, is what it says.
Bill:
So it could be swapped in any way. Not necessarily reverse. Because yeah, that was my first thought as well, was for some reason, someone who's like, "No, the integrity of this game is ruined by the fact that to keep listener engagement, they always put this thing in for the last person, and the first person— "And so to make it truly random, I'm gonna mess them around. So people won't know what's coming."
Tom:
There was someone on the Australian version of The Traitors who got cut out of the show for metagaming too much.
Dani:
(cackles)
Bill:
Ah, fun.
Tom:
He's visible in the wide shots. I mean, I haven't seen this. If the details on this are wrong, I'm getting this second hand, but... He's visible in the wide shots. He's introduced a couple times. He doesn't really say much. He just gets eliminated at one point, and no one really mentions or cares about him in the edit.
And it turns out, that's because it was season one, he'd worked out how the game works, and he kept saying things like, "Oh, well, those two came down to breakfast last. So the producers clearly want us to think this. So that means they're safe, and they're not Traitors." And it just kind of...
Bill:
(laughs heartily)
Tom:
It was really useful information for him, but just ruined the show for all the viewers.
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
So he just—
Dani:
You gotta keep to yourself.
Tom:
Well he didn't—
Bill:
That's like when the casino kicks you out for counting cards.
Tom:
Right?
Bill:
"I'm just playing the game! I'm following the rules!"
"Yeah, but you're too good. Get outta here!"
Tom:
So, because he didn't win, and he didn't really actually affect the game all that much, they just kinda dropped him from most of the episodes.
Dani:
I suppose I would believe that some diehard fan would have figured out the metagame and tried to rearrange things so that it didn't work anymore, so that they could still feel the thrill.
Tom:
Well, there's plenty of shows that have that problem.
If you are 27 minutes into a 30 minute show, and they're just starting a game, they're probably not going to win it. They've probably just been dropped in there to, you know, probably going to crash out early.
Julian:
So with the ordering, instead of being comedian one, two, three, four... the new order was three, four, one, two.
Dani:
3-4-1-2. That doesn't even make pi.
Bill:
Doesn't even make pi.
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
This is very intentional.
Bill:
So basically, 3-4-1-2 basically just means they took the latter half, and they made it the first half. They want the end to be the start and the start to be the end. Which is odd. And they did it because... Tom, you take it away.
Tom:
I don't know, Dani's the one who's seen some episodes of it.
Bill:
Were they colourblind? No.
Tom:
Alright, I'm gonna set a scene here. Was there someone else involved with this? Did— Was the listener editing it, and then playing this to someone else?
Julian:
No, quite the opposite. So they were a genuine fan of the show, and they were doing it for their own reasons.
Tom:
Because I was thinking that it might be those people who watch a game show while their partner is not around, so they know the answers in advance, and can pretend to be clever, and there was some trick in doing that... Nope, okay, never mind.
Bill:
I've also got another, you know... I've got all these ideas that don't seem to hold up to scrutiny.
Like it's aired at different times when you cross somewhere, and they started listening to it, and they knew that when they crossed over, they'd get to the next part. It would be restarting. So it's like, well, I want to listen to three and four first.
And by the time on my regular drive, I cross over into... Wales, they're like, they start— they're airing it later, and now they'll be on one and two. So that's what I'll hear when I get across the border on my regular truck drive.
But that wouldn't really make that much sense either, because they would've already had the capacity to listen to the whole thing.
Julian:
The timing of the listening to the episodes is key.
Bill:
It's key!
Tom:
Oh.
Bill:
How is the show distributed? Do you— Is this a radio show? Is this a podca— Can you—
Tom:
Radio. Radio show and podcast.
Bill:
It is a radio show.
Julian:
So the way the show works is, yeah, each of the comedians is kind of a standalone piece.
Dani:
I don't know, I think this person's just quirky.
Julian:
That is a quirky character.
Bill:
Yeah, this is a quirky person. That's it.
Julian:
Now the episodes of the show, they are fairly long, is something to note, which is part of it.
Bill:
Do they always save the best guests for last? And this person's just like, "Look, I'm going to fall asleep by the end. So why don't I get the best guests first, and then the other two while I'm falling asleep? Because I listen to podcasts when I go to bed, or I listen— I download this, and I listen to it when I fall asleep"?
And so they were like, "First two, boring, it's always the same people that's always there. They build up to the good ones."
Julian:
You are so close, my friend.
It is about listening while falling asleep. Finish it off.
Tom:
There are plenty of shows that will reorder the questions, the players, even the episodes in a season to move things around and make the dramatic arc better, or just put the good ones first so people keep listening.
Julian:
Mate, you're...
Tom:
(sighs)
Julian:
You're... You've got really close to there. The reason is is they like to listen when they fall asleep, when they go to bed, so...
Bill:
So, they listen to the last two, not just because they're the best, but because the first two are always the same hosts, and they're one of the first two, and they don't want to listen to themselves.
Tom:
Or, it gives them two versions to listen to. No, because you could just pop— Are they uncertain of when they fell asleep, and then they have to listen to the other episode the next day? Like the edited one is there, so they can hear the bits that they missed the previous night?
Julian:
Spot on. That's exactly right. They listen to the show.
SFX:
(Tom and Bill exclaim)
Julian:
They hear comedian one, they hear comedian two. Somewhere along the way, they fall asleep. They try again the next day, they fall asleep at the same point. So they get to listen to all the favourite— the show again and catch up with the ones that they're normally asleep by.
Dani:
Interesting. I should try that with a couple of movies. I've got a couple of movies where I always fall asleep at the same point. Deep Impact, I'm so sorry.
Tom:
Try Memento for that. That'll work well.
Dani:
(cackles)
SFX:
(Bill and Julian laugh)
Julian:
So yeah, broadly this gives you two listenings to the show. They're all standalone, but the only downside is some of the callback jokes don't quite work. So give yourself a high five if you've done that to this show right now.
Tom:
Eyy!
Bill:
Yay!
Tom:
As we suspected earlier, our producer has unlocked the shiny bonus question because there were some very quick solves in there.
This question has been sent in by Jeff. Thank you very much, Jeff.
In 2017, why did a New York store open a robin's-egg blue room so that people could fulfill a 56-year-old ambition?
I'll say that again.
In 2017, why did a New York store open a robin's-egg blue room so that people could fulfill a 56-year-old ambition?
Dani:
I've got a guess.
Tom:
You've got it?
Dani:
I've got a— I've got a guess sir. I might... I'm gonna draw something.
Bill:
Well, Dani, what was fift— What was 56 years before 2017?
Dani:
Well, that helped a little bit, possibly. I could be super wrong, but I'm drawing it anyway.
Julian:
Maybe you're right, 2017. What is it, 1960?
Bill:
Yeah, so like 1961?
Julian:
'61, 1961. What was the— What were the big bands at the time? What was the big event at the time?
Bill:
Oh, there was the blue room band, where they said, everybody come and dance in the blue room. Everybody loves the blue room.
Julian:
That's right!
Bill:
It's 1961 and I love the blue room. Dance with me. And everyone's like, I'd love that.
Julian:
Robin egg blue. Robin egg blue. Robin egg blue. Robin egg blue.
Bill:
Yeah, that's the chorus. I didn't think we could sing that though. They might not have the rights.
Julian:
Ah, that's right.
Tom:
Until you got to the third line of that, Bill, I was genuinely convinced that was a real song, so...
Bill:
It's a real song. It's about the blue room. Now that was my lie. Here comes my truth. Is— When did Breakfast at Tiffany's come out?
Dani:
Can I show you my picture?
Tom:
It does indeed say Breakfast at Tiffany's, and that is the correct answer, yes.
Bill:
Yeah.
Dani:
My picture is two very fancily dressed women with lots of jewellery eating some breakfast.
Tom:
Yes.
Bill:
And so, I, yeah. There must have been a blue room in that movie.
Dani:
I believe Tiffany's is associated with a light blue colour, right?
Bill:
Oh, well there you go. So they had a breakfast nook.
Tom:
Yes, they specifically opened a little dining room so that people could, in fact, have breakfast at Tiffany's, which was not possible until 2017.
Bill:
Wonderful.
Tom:
Which brings us to the question right at the start.
What flying animal is missing from this book title: "P is for [blank], the Worst Alphabet Book Ever"?
Dani:
I think we've proven ourselves in tune with childlike trolls in this episode. I hope we can get that.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Julian:
I feel good.
Bill:
I don't. I'm just thinking of pig with wings.
Dani:
Well, well, well.
Julian:
Mmm!
Bill:
Oh, pterodactyl!
Dani:
Isn't this exciting?
Tom:
There we go.
Bill:
It's pterodactyl.
Tom:
I was going to say, Julian, I think you had it, and then kinda had that sniped from you, like a pterodactyl swooping down and stealing...
Julian:
I think it's pterodactyl, so I'm gonna edit that in.
David, put my answer over the top. I'll go first.
Pterodactyl. What were you going to guess, Bill? What were you going to guess?
Bill:
I was gonna say it was a penguin, and it was bad just because it's incorrect information.
Tom:
Yes, this is a book released in 2018 by Chris Carpenter and Raj Haldar.
It is full of words that use silent letters.
And this is something I've also heard, which is the Devil's Phonetic Alphabet.
Dani:
(snickers)
Bill:
(laughs)
Tom:
Which has things like, A is for aural, C is for cue...
SFX:
(Dani and Bill laugh)
Tom:
D is for Djin, and just lots of words like that. I don't know what the original ones in this book are, but there are various alphabets out there that entirely rely on silent letters.
Dani:
Love it.
Tom:
Well done to all of our players for some very, very quick and efficient solving in there, and also some good conversation as well. It's literally what the show's about. Well done, everyone.
Let's find out, what's going on in your lives? Where can people find you?
We will start with Bill.
Bill:
Yeah, if you want to check out more of what we do, you can look for Escape This Podcast for audio escape rooms, and Solve This Murder for audio murder mysteries.
Tom:
Dani, what kind of things can people find there?
Dani:
Oh, you'll mostly on Escape This Podcast find rooms that I or occasionally someone else have written and guests coming on and solving the puzzles and winding their way through the stories.
Tom, you're on a couple of episodes yourself, so those are a good place to start.
Tom:
And if you want to hear what Producer David sounds like, he's also on those episodes.
Dani:
Oh yeah.
Tom:
And Julian, what's going on with you? Where can people find you?
Julian:
My name is Julian O'Shea, and that's the handle I use, making videos about designed cities and the great city of the world, Melbourne, Australia.
Tom:
And you have previously held the camera for me on a shoot at Luna Park in Melbourne. Thank you very much for that.
Julian:
Indeed I do. So if you need a spare camera hand, then I'm your guy.
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Tom:
Thank you very much to all our players.
If you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We are regularly at youtube.com/lateralcast with video highlights, and you can find us at @lateralcast basically everywhere.
Thank you very much to Julian O'Shea.
Julian:
Thank you.
Tom:
Dani Siller.
Dani:
Thank you.
Tom:
And Bill Sunderland.
Bill:
Thank you for having me.
Tom:
I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.
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